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A review by stanley_nolan_blog
Look Who's Back by Timur Vermes
4.0
Look Who's Back, first published a decade ago in Germany, was prescient in its argument about celebrity culture making anyone a star for all the wrong reasons. Timur Vermes took this conclusion to its logical conclusion, what if Adolf Hitler himself re-appeared in 2011 Berlin? Simple: he'd become a popular figure for his apparent overidentification (Stiob) with taboo opinions.
The book leads me to two opinions that are equally distressing: first, by writing in the first-person from Hitler's perspective, it forces the reader to understand the world through his eyes, creating the impossible scenario of forcing one to empathize (but not sympathize) with him. This immediately creates the conditions for Zizek's uncomfortable argument that anybody could, in fact, have been a Nazi under certain conditions. (For instance, Hitler's opinions in the book are oftentimes similar to positions politicians take against their enemies, which they try to use against one another. Is this not what happened to the conservatives the grifted onto Hitler's original movement?) If you're someone who thinks otherwise, then I admire your hubris.
Second, the entertainment industry that allowed Hitler to become a popular figure in fictional 2011 Berlin for financial gain was the same kind of process that led to the "real" Hitler's rise in the nineteen-twenties as well as Trump's in 2015/6. As it turns out, obscene gestures in publicly venerated institutions creates attention, which, as we all know now, turns into a healthy profit.
The book leads me to two opinions that are equally distressing: first, by writing in the first-person from Hitler's perspective, it forces the reader to understand the world through his eyes, creating the impossible scenario of forcing one to empathize (but not sympathize) with him. This immediately creates the conditions for Zizek's uncomfortable argument that anybody could, in fact, have been a Nazi under certain conditions. (For instance, Hitler's opinions in the book are oftentimes similar to positions politicians take against their enemies, which they try to use against one another. Is this not what happened to the conservatives the grifted onto Hitler's original movement?) If you're someone who thinks otherwise, then I admire your hubris.
Second, the entertainment industry that allowed Hitler to become a popular figure in fictional 2011 Berlin for financial gain was the same kind of process that led to the "real" Hitler's rise in the nineteen-twenties as well as Trump's in 2015/6. As it turns out, obscene gestures in publicly venerated institutions creates attention, which, as we all know now, turns into a healthy profit.